


Lucky

by BlackVelvet42



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Reflection, Six Deadly Words Prompts, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 00:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15084950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackVelvet42/pseuds/BlackVelvet42
Summary: "One moment he had been by her side, fighting this battle that was already lost, and next she had received the report of casualties, including her second in command."





	Lucky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angrywarrior69](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angrywarrior69/gifts).



> For a voice that went straight to my heart and settled there.

* * *

 

 

He didn’t look dead.

Tucked under a white sheet on the narrow biobed, he looked as though he was merely sleeping.

Not that she had ever seen him asleep, but she had no trouble picturing him, in his quarters, beneath the passing stars, in deep dream like this.

Lines of worry smoothed from his face, at peace with himself and the world.

She moved closer but resisted the instinct to touch him. The feel of his cold skin would be too cruel, would break the illusion she found oddly comforting so instead she continued her stare.

The news had reached her in the last minutes of the latest attack, but duties more urgent had kept her occupied until, over an hour later, she had entered the sickbay.

The Doctor hadn’t said much. Somewhere along the way, detailed analysis of injuries and causes of death, and the ensuing respectful words and silence, had been discarded as irrelevant. There was no reason to make an exception with this death, even if she would have wanted.

Muttering his condolences, the Doctor had retreated to his office and left her alone to confront what she, despite their circumstances, had never truly prepared for.

He had been the image of vitality and strength. But unlike her own stormy being, he had been stable and secure, easily trusted without hesitancy, a sustaining and supporting force wherever he went.

The kind of foundation friendships or communities could be built upon. Or a lifetime of happiness.

How could a man like that ever die? How could such a strong spirit ever truly cease to exist?

One moment he had been by her side, fighting this battle that was already lost, and next she had received the report of casualties, including her second in command.

The memory stirred the fog filling her mind, threatening to shatter the blessed numbness that had enabled moving and acting, but when she swallowed and blinked, the feeling was gone.

What was it he’d said a few weeks back when they crawled through the collapsing Jefferies tubes?

Lucky?

Standing beside his lifeless body and reflecting on the past months, his word choice made strange, brutal sense.

Those past months had been… trying, taking away too much and too many. Joy, curiosity, hope - and a future. Leaving their hearts empty and aching.

After years of successfully maneuvering their journey with diplomacy and technology, respected and feared, with only a few compromises to the ethics and guidelines they had vowed to uphold, they had gotten too confident. 

She had gotten too confident.

Or maybe they had been doomed from the day they were stranded. Maybe their optimism had never been anything but ridiculous and arrogant, to assume they had any chance to survive alone in an unknown quadrant, far away from base and backup.

Starfleet arrogance.

That’s what the aliens had named their request to cross their space. Spitting out their contempt and sending a torpedo at them as an irritated afterthought.

Back at the time, hearing those words had brought a twinkle to her eyes and a smile of steel to her lips, almost excited about the impending action after a long quiet.

She had given the order to strengthen the shields and power up their weapons, not to return the fire, but to speak the same language with this species, to gain leverage and the necessary status to either continue the negotiations or their safe travel around this space.

I’ll show you Starfleet arrogance, she had thought, amused.

Not much later, that phrase had come back to haunt her as a symbol of her own failure.

Enraged, the aliens had come after them. One ship, one attack at a time, unrelenting, refusing to negotiate or accept surrender, with a single goal to destroy the trespassers who had humiliated them. Gradually bringing both Voyager and her captain to her knees.

The strategy meetings had soon spun from controlled to heated.

At first, they had trusted that they could overcome the new threat, but after a series of crippling blows to both the ship and their pride, they were only desperate to survive. And finally, the empty seats around the briefing room table had left a silence that could not be filled.

All the while they had gathered, planning different approaches and developing fresh tactics, there had been another war raging inside her.

Every inch of her pulsed with the need to protect the lives under her command, yet every loss was undeniable proof of her inability to fulfill that responsibility. The failure burned within, the guilt bit by bit gnawing away her confidence and replacing that strength with a fear she did not want to admit.

A fear that this mistake had been her last and everyone would have to pay the consequences.

If he had seen through her flawless facade of a captain, he had never brought up his observations, but stayed next to her, supporting her and giving her what she needed even before she had known what to ask.

Validating her choices when she wavered, offering an alternative when she could see none. Confronting her, questioning her when her single-minded recklessness was threatening to take over reason.

And taking her to his silent embrace when another life was lost and nothing more could be done.

From the beginning, he had given more than a first officer would, more than was expected. Although his affection was obvious to her, his discretion was absolute. Skillfully, he managed to balance their relationship somewhere between duty and personal need, making it easy for her to accept what he offered and enjoy his company.

Only once they had slipped. A definite error in judgment, but one she couldn’t bring herself to regret.

At the beginning, when the darkness and hard decisions were still ahead, they had been more careless. Unmasked gazes, lingering touches. Dinners planned with warm smiles. And one evening, swept away by unguarded emotion, hunger and heat stripping all pretense, spilling secrets into the open, revealing a longing however impossible.

She had rejected him that day, for reasons they both agreed on, and asked for his friendship instead. But unspoken, embedded in their parting kiss, remained a promise.

A promise that they would wait for this love as long as needed, until they were back home.

How incredibly naïve, she thought now, lightyears later. Nothing but a childish fantasy. She should have realized the only home they were ever again going to know was right here, right now.

And then that too was ripped away.

Lucky, he had said that day crawling through the Jefferies tubes with her. He had described himself as lucky.

Next to the fallen bulkheads and open panels exposing damaged wiring, she had considered his sanity, not his words.

At the tired lifting of her brow, a glimmer of a smile had passed over his lips, and he had gone on to explain.

After decades of frustrated anger and inner conflict, he had eventually found a balance on Voyager. A kind of serenity that allowed him to view his past with gratitude.

Gratitude for his roots he had disregarded and family he had all too readily abandoned for a future among strangers. A career that had thrived until it crashed, to a conflict too harsh to be tolerated. And all the pain and confusion that had followed, years of struggle to mend what was broken. Every coincidence and command obeyed, every impulse and measured decision that had led him to the present.

And even if he’d had the chance to reroute his life, he would not have known what to change or why.

Another red alert had called them back to battle, but running to the lift it had occurred to her that between the lines, he had also meant to say he was grateful for her.

For everything they were and for everything they might never be.

How he had created a moment of such grace in the middle of chaos, she could not comprehend. Still, that day, just as all the others, his presence had centered her and helped her find calm, making her command easier.

Yes, he was but one more on a list that had grown longer than the one counting the living, yet she knew that if they had lost him earlier, they wouldn’t have come anywhere near this far.

And now he was gone, taking along the air she breathed and the ground she walked upon. All she had left was a goodbye too final and overwhelming to evoke any tears from her exhausted, drained being.

She regarded his closed lids, his dark lashes against his skin. The mark on his forehead honoring his heritage and the rank insignia on his collar symbolizing achievement and significance of the other part of his journey. Remnants of his beautiful soul lingering on those external signs.

No, he didn’t look like he was dead. Simply resting. Ready to wipe the dream from his eyes and lean forward to hear what weighed on her mind today, to focus his attention on her the way he always did, like she was all he could see.

The wave of loss rose, but abated. Sighing, she let her head slowly fall forward and come to lie on the pillow of his cold chest.

She found no steady rise and fall on her resting place, no beat of a heart she had come to rely upon. Only the faint familiar scent to comfort her, reminding her of a person with whom her restless spirit had found peace and a home.

There was no hurry anymore, nowhere she needed to be.

Voyager was damaged beyond repair, their resources depleted. The remains of her crew unable to compile any kind of defense against the next attack sure to come within the hour.

As her last duty, she had opened a ship wide channel, thanked everyone, and advised them to spend their last moments with friends and loved ones.

Then she had felt Tuvok’s firm hand on her shoulder setting her free, and she had headed to the one person she longed to be with, even if nothing but the shell of that man remained.

Walking the empty corridors to sickbay, the sting of defeat inside her flickered and faded, and like a picture had been completed, she finally understood where his inner peace had derived from.

Acceptance.

The quiet knowledge that he was only one man, unable to prevent every wrong and sure to add his own mistakes to the many failures of mankind. The gentle compassion that every step on his path had value because those steps were his and that his attempt to do more good than harm was enough.

Generations had preceded him and others would continue after he was gone. The trail he had left would blend into a larger whole, and all would evolve eternally forward.

Deep within, she knew she had never possessed any of that. Not really.

Not his calm contentment, nor the silent wisdom.

She had lived throughout her years in constant battle with herself and the world, striving to change what she felt needed to be changed with whatever means were necessary, to shape the world to better match her ideals. She had been a force of nature, wild and unsettled, bending for nothing and no one… but isolated and alone, carrying on her shoulders a lifetime of guilt for never accomplishing enough.

That had been her path.

What he had seen in her was a mystery to her. What she could have ever given him was beyond her grasp. Nevertheless, he had appeared to be happy with her.

Like he was the lucky one.

A distant rumble shook the ship, sooner than expected, but she didn’t move, only drew in a deep breath and then let it out.

She slid her small hand into his, twined their fingers easily together into a perfect fit and pressed closer to him.

Along with the incoming thunder grew a thought.

A wish, as frail as life itself, that she could meet him again.

That she could join him in a quiet death if there was nothing more, but if, after all, this world was only one out of many, then in that other existence he had believed possible.

Would he hear her? Across the deep waters separating this life and the next, would he hear if she reached out to him at the moment of her death and asked him to guide her?

So that when her eyes closed for the last time, she would open them again on the other side and see him waiting for her, welcoming her home.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Six Deadly Words prompts: #28 I just heard about your death and #47 True love is stronger than death.  
> Song: Lucky by Jason Mraz & Colbie Caillat
> 
> Thank you devovere for the kind and thorough beta. Made me feel like Christmas:)


End file.
